Sixteen
by Writergirl.WS
Summary: Mother dead. Father in jail, whats a poor girl to do when both a rich jerk and a poor sweetheart fall for her? Life at sixteen, with everything and nothing.


Sixteen. The age, when my life became defined. When I realized what I was going to be, who I was going to be, for the rest of my life. Sixteen. A person's life can be determined in a short spand of time, a second, a minute, a day or even a month. But for me, it was at the age of sixteen. I became the girl, I never knew I could be. The women, I dreamed of being. This was my life, at sixteen.

"Dude, it's time for school, get up!" screamed my brother through the wooden door that separated our rooms in our apartment. I tumbled out of bed, hitting my head on my side table. "C'mon, it's time for breakfast! I've got to go to work, and you've got school." I shook my head awake and pushed myself off the ground, another late night with my best friends, Ben and Jerry. I unlocked my door, and squinted at my big brother, "Well it's about time!" He left towards the kitchen table for breakfast, which was prepared with milk and cereal. I tumbled on my way to my chair, while Carter, my big brother, sat down as gently as if he was the King of England. I slouched on my chair and raised my knee up to my chin to rest my tired and droopy face. "You'll drop food on yourself if you do that, you know?" I heard my big brother whisper.

"Shut up, who do you think you are eh? Dad?" I sarcastically remarked, but as soon as the words rammed out of my mouth, I wish they hadn't. An awkward silence befell us, and I could even hear the next door neighbors talking. "Sorry…" I said, bowing my head in shame. I looked up at my big brother, meeting his eyes as he looked down on me. He had such warm hazel eyes that made you feel so safe, as if you were with a puppy dog. His blonde hair; shaggy; always pointing in the left direction. My brother was my savior, he saved me from being in Foster care.

"I know you didn't mean it, now hurry up and eat your cereal. I'm going to work now, so remember to lock up before you go to school ok?" he said smiling. He was always so understanding, his heart was so pure and good, that I sometimes wonder if we really are related. Me and him were total opposites, the only thing we had that was the same were our eyes. They were both hazel nut brown, which turned into gold when we looked up to the sun. My hair was light brown, and his was dirty blonde. His IQ was 170, and I was still in IB SL Math. He was like a monk, and I was like a savage dog ready to attack anything that came in my way.

"Alright," I said, "I'll see you after work, alright?". He got up and left the kitchen table, to go brush his teeth and head out the door.

"See you!" he called out from the door, closing it behind him. I didn't bother to say bye back, considering by the time I had said it, he'd already have closed the door and not heard a word I would have said. As I got up, I noticed he forgot his lunch on the Kitchen counter. This meant I had to go down to the science lab he worked at and give it to him. My brother, only 23, and he's already raising a child, me, and he was a grad student working at a lab to identify human remains. I got up from the table, and went to go take a shower. I put on my usual school clothes, and packed my bag. I ran to the kitchen to pick up the lunch bag and I ran out the door, remembering to lock it. As I was walking down the corridor, our owner came out his door.

"Ae! Kiddo," He called out, "When am I getting my rent this month?" The sight of Mr Petshetty annoyed me. It looked like he didn't bathe for days and he'd always be digging around his belly button with his index finger with his tongue stick out. I just wanted to punch him square in the face.

"I'm getting paid today, so you'll get your rent when I get home, alright?" I said walking towards the end of the corridor to the stairs. My brother and I have no choice but to live her, the rents cheap and it's close to his work place. I rode my bike to the lab, and took the elevator to the second floor where my brother's work area was. I could already hear him talking to a murder victim's family, trying to calm them down. His job was identifying human remains of murder victims of the present day. But he was only a intern, so he wasn't exactly paid top dollar. He work and the University of Auckland, which was a top notch university. My brother had brains, and he was determined to be the top grad student to offer me more money for more opportunities. As I was about to walk into his office, a security guard stopped me.

"Ma'am, do you have a pass?" He said with a deep voice.

"Ma'am? How old do you think I am dude? I'm only 16, and your calling me Ma'am?" I said giving him a glare. When things piss me off, they really, REALLY piss me off. I saw a women, with dark hair coming my way. Oh crap, she's probably going to kick me out and get my big brother in trouble.

"Is something the matter?" She asked the guard, she glanced down at my for a second. But then returned her glance into a stare. "Excuse me, but are you Carter's relative?" She asked me. This must be his girlfriend. Great. I wasn't meant to meet her until….well never. I never liked meeting Carter's girlfriend. Never really liked meeting anyone for that fact.

"Actually, I'm his littler sister. I'm just dropping by to give him his lunch. He forgot it at home." I said, holding out the brown paper bag which contained his lunch. I looked up at her face to see pure amazement.

"Oh really? I never knew he had a sister. I'm…" but before she could finished her sentence I interrupted her.

"Yeah, I know you're his girlfriend." I said with a big sigh in my voice.

"No, actually I'm his boss." She said with a smile. I was in pure embarrassment, I looked up at her with a bright red face as she giggled at me. Great, she must think I'm sort of baby now.

"Well, could you give him this lunch, I've got school and I really need to get going." I shoved the paper back into her hands and headed for the elevator. It was already 8 o'clock and class started at 8:10, one more tardy and I was going to get a 20 min detention. And I just couldn't afford being late for my waitressing job at the dinner. I work at the diner everyday after school and on weekends till 8pm everyday. The pay we get from the dinner, I use for our rent and my academic supplies. I raced to school on my bike, peddling as fast as I could. I finally arrived with a minute to spare. I jogged to my first class, my most hated class, history. I went to Epsom Girl's Grammar. I liked the school, it was nice and only girls. Meaning boys couldn't be a distraction. I already had enough on my plate as it was. As I was about to enter the class my teacher stopped me and instructed me and everyone to go to the gymnasium. Once the whole school was collected, the principle got up to talk.

"Student, Ladies and gentlemen. It has come to my attention that the government is coming to a conclusion to cut back on our public school funds. But, the city council offered us an ultimatum. Either have out budget cut down, or join our all girls school with the all boys school next door." Declared the principle. Finally he concluded that both schools were going to connect as of next week, and everything will be mixed. I could hear all the girls gossiping and whispering about the all boys schools we were going to join with. The all boys school was rather unknown to us girls. Unless you went to a mix gendered primary school, you didn't really have any friends that were boys. For me, I just had my brother and that was enough for me. School went by slowly, and I had 30 minutes to get to my dinner job all the way in New Market. As I was leaving the campus, I noticed the dark head women from before in my brother's lab.

"Snowy," She called out. Boy do I hate it when people call out my nickname. But it was better than my previous name my father gave me at birth which was; Mistake. When my brother got custody of me, he changed my name to Snowy-day, but just for short, Snowy. "Glad I caught you, I heard you could use some company walking up to New Market. May I join you?" She asked.

"Well, it's free world. Why not?" I said un chaining my bike form the post and placing my bag in the basket on the front of my bike.

" So, Snowy? That's an interesting name. May I ask why your parents decided to name you that?" She asked, walking parallel to me in her high heeled boots and her long black coat. It was June, and in New Zealand, that meant it was Freezing. I got out my black jumper from my back pack and tugged it on, as well as stretching my black wool hat over my head.

"My parents didn't name me that." I said, as I began to walk again. "My brother did."

"Your brother? Where are your parents?" She asked with a puzzeled look.

"Well I guess because you're my brother's boss, you have a right to know about our background." I said clutching onto the steering wheel of my bike. "Our mother died when I was born, and because of that my father hated me. He named me, Mistake. When I was 11 and my brother was 18, my father was caught dealing drugs at the near-by park. He was sentenced to prison for 8 years. My brother fought for custody of me, because he didn't want us to be separated in foster care. For 11 years I grew up with the name "Mistake" so you can imagine, the first thing we did was change my name. My brother decided to call me "Snowy-day". At the time I loved that name, considering I was only 11, but now, it's so weird. He decided to name me that because, well, he calls me his break. He says I'm like a Snowy day, I let him rest from the world when things get to busy, and I give him a bit of a break to live. That's why he named be Snowy-day." I said with a smile. I knew how much my brother loved me, so I was determined to do what I could to take the heat of him.

"That's a beautiful story," She said with a sort of tear in her eye. Oh, great, I've made her cry. I hate it when people start crying infront of me. I never know what to do. We finally both arrived at the diner, and I was 10 minutes early. "I guess you've got to get to work, and I've got to get back to the lab. Thanks for the talk today. I"ll see you sometime soon." She said walking away. That women is some piece of work, and very strange in my opinion. But hey, she's my brother's boss, so I guess I've got to give her some respect. I walked into the diner from the back alley, and put on my waiter outfit. It was basically, jeans and a black shirt with a waist apron. As I was maintaining the counter customers, a huge group of boys come running into the diner with a pack of girls and they both sat down at a booth. At first, I ignored the girls and boys, but then I realized that the girls, were from my school. As if my day couldn't get any weirder. I didn't hate these girls, but to put things in prospective, I don't think they even knew me. I was very invisible at the school, because with everything I was going through, I really didn't have time to have friends. As I walked over to their booth to take their order, one of the girls recognized me.

"Snowy? That you?" OH my goodness," She screamed, "It's me, your chemistry Partner, Chess. DO you work here?" She asked, putting all eye direction on me.

"Hi, yeah I do. What can I get you guys?" I asked grabbed my pad and pen from my pocket to take down their order. They all began to place their orders, and I took them down as quickly as possible. I recognized some of the boys though, well not exactly the boys. But the boys uniforms. They looked pretty high in status. I think they went to Gem Academy, which was down the road from my Brother's work place. I walked over to the kitchen and placed their order, as I was waiting for their food to be ready cooked, I began to do my English assignment. Which was basically read 45 pages of Macbeth. My boss really didn't mind me doing homework, because he knew my situation, mainly because the owner was my mother's lover. That's right, because my mother died, she had an affair. When he found out my mother was dead, he named the diner after her, "Cindy's Diner". Doesn't really hurt me, considering I never really knew my mother. When I was old enough, my boss told me the story over a cup of coffee. Finally their food was ready to be served, I picked up their order and placed it all at their table. It was finally my break so I went outside for little bit of a breath of fresh air, and for my dinner. Which was a ham and cheese sandwich and a diet coke. I sat down on a bench and started eating, and as I ate, I would feed bits of it to the stray bulldog, that would sit outside the diner. In the past, I would take care of this poor dog and feed him left-overs from the diner.

I was finally on way back in, when suddenly the bunch of girls and guys charged out. They had dined and dashed, great. Just what I needed. As I walked to the table to clean it all up, one of the guys came back. His hair was brown, and he was wearing his school uniform. Which was a white long sleeved collared shirt, underneath a blue vest, and black designer pants. Damn these rich kids, what I would give to just sock him and his friends for skipping on the bill. But, as I was about to raise my voice at him, he handed me a wad of cash. "Here's for the bill, and a little extra for you." He said, and before I could even glance back from my hand to him he was gone.

I finished work, and collected my pay check for the month. It was already 8pm and it was pitch dark, so I didn't ride my bike home. I walked down the street, back to our apartment, and carried my bike up the stairs and down the corridor into the apartment. I placed my bike inside the room, and bagged onto Mr Petsetty's door. He opened it, with some kind of black stuff oozing from his belly button and his nose. "Here's payment for this months rent." I said walking back into my own apartment. Today was a stressful day, and I just wanted some time to rest. So I grabbed my ipod, put on my track pants, and locked the apartment. I walked out onto the roof and pressed play on my ipod. I slid my ipod back into my pocket, and began to move in rythem to the beats. I never really took dancing lessons, because in reality, we didn't have that money to spare. So during time, I taught myself to dance, which, was more fun. I'd lead, twirl, and bend, all in time to the music. When it was about 9pm, I finally went back down stairs and took my shower. I sat at the kitchen table with all my books out. Beginning my homework. As I started on my math homework, I heard my brother enter the house. "Dude, where are you?" He called out.

"In here," I called back. Waving my hand in the air, for no reason. He entered into the kitchen and sat down opposite to me.

"I heard you had a little talk with my boss, Snowy." He said, nodding his head while looking over my homework answers.

"Yeah I did, she seemed nice." I said, trying to grab back my homework, before he could realize some of my science answers were basically me coming up with junk.

"Well, Snowy, I kind of have something to tell you." He said, releasing my homework from his death grip. Great, his boss was his girlfriend. I guess he was sleeping with his boss for a raise of something. I rolled my eyes, and started on my math homework. "The thing is, she's not just my boss." He said.

"Yeah, I know I know." I said interrupting him, before he could finish. " I know she's your girlfriend, whatever."

"No," He said, slamming his hand on top of my notebook. "More like, she's my wife."

Damn it, the things that happen to me while I'm only sixteen.


End file.
